A deafening roar came from somewhere below her, but it was Sorvar’s yelled command in her mind that she heard.
Tina, pull in your wings!
A harsh sob broke from her chest. Sorvar, I can’t. If I do, I won’t be able to extend them again. They’re too damaged.
Claws dug into her ankle, ripping a scream from her as the Crasgich pulled her inexorably closer and closer. Tina bucked and beat her wings, twisting this way and that.
Pavri, you must. Hurry!
He’d asked her to trust him, told her she was safe with him, and she believed him, now more than ever.
Tina snapped her wings in seconds before something hit the male holding her. She shrieked as she was yanked up by the ankle.
The wind grabbed at her hair, pulling at her wings and clothes as she was flung about. Growls and snarls punctuated her cries. Then she was flung up, up, and up. The hand around her ankle was ripped away, the claws cutting into her skin. Tina hung motionless in the sky for a second before she dropped.
Her scream caught in her throat, silenced by her inability to breathe. The wind pulled at her wings as she rocketed downward. Tina twisted in the air, stinging tears blinding her as she rolled to her front.
The ground and jagged roofline of the palace were alarmingly close. Falling through the sky once in her life had been plenty. Why the fuck was she doing this again?
Roars and the sound of fighting competed with the whistle of the wind in her ears. The muscles in her back shrieked as the wind ripped at her wings, trying to force them open.
If she didn’t do something soon, she was going to die. She trusted Sorvar, she really did, but she wasn’t about to wait around for him to save her. She wouldn’t survive if she hit the roof or the ground. For all her changed form, she was still a soft weak little human who was easy to kill and even easier to break.
Tina forced her wings out, the air catching in the thin membranes. She beat them furiously, her teeth gritted as a scream lodged in her throat. The roof of the palace kept rushing towards her at an alarming pace.
A dark shape hurtled underneath her, flying with a level of skill that would have made her gasp if she could have caught her breath. The shape twisted and shot straight up towards her. Tina did everything Sorvar had taught her about stopping mid-flight, but her damaged wing couldn’t handle the stress and the delicate skin tore under the strain.
The scream that ripped from her throat was followed by a roar and Sorvar’s yell in her head.
Pavri!
But the Crasgich male shooting towards her reached for her with out-stretched arms as Tina plummeted straight for him. Not again! Why wouldn’t these bastards just leave her alone?
Mere feet separated them. The Crasgich male stared at her with bulging black eyes that shone in the bright sun. Tina slammed into the male with the force of a shuttle collision. The male grunted, the impact forcing him backward in the sky, her wings buckling as he wrapped his arms around her, crushing the fine bones.
Stunned by the collision and pain radiating through every inch of her body all Tina could do was whimper.
Sorvar.
His responding roar cut through the air, a vicious, furious sound that filled her with his burning fury. Strong arms gripped her to the sticky, stinking body of the Crasgich male as he propelled them higher and higher.
Tina struggled, every movement sending pain shooting through her. She clawed and kicked, wriggled and twisted until she could get one arm free, then she attacked the male’s eyes, gouging her claws into the soft tissue. She would rather die than go with them. She would rather die than be separated from Sorvar.
The male screamed and let her go. Tina dropped, again, falling through the air, but this time she couldn’t do anything but scream. Her wings were broken, the membranes bleeding and torn. She had no way to slow her descent.
“Tina!”
Sorvar’s scream carried to her on the wind whistling past her ears as she watched the training courtyard and its high walls get closer and closer.
The wind ripped at her battered wings, damaging them further as she plummeted for the ground.
I love you, handsome.
“Noooo!”
Tina felt his scream inside her. She felt his terror and desperation, his pain, and most of all she felt his blinding need for her to live.
Tears stung her eyes as Sorvar’s emotion overwhelmed her and sucked all the breath from her lungs. She closed her eyes and sent him every sliver of love she felt for him, letting it swell inside her until it drowned out his overwhelming emotions and she knew he would know how deeply she felt for him.
Pain explode through her body, and Tina screamed as her world tilted on its axis before everything went black.
Death was not supposed to hurt. Once you were gone, the pain was supposed to stop, or so Tina thought. Even after thousands of years, humanity still hadn’t discovered what the afterlife held. Even with all the information they received from their new alien brethren they still couldn’t agree.
But it wasn’t supposed to be like this. Unless she’d gone to hell. Which didn’t make any sense because she didn’t believe in hell.
She shifted position, and a shaft of pain shot through her leg making her scream. Her eyes popped open and sunlight blinded her for a few seconds until her eyes adjusted.
Where was she? Was she even alive? All she could remember was closing her eyes and pain.
Tina tried to roll to her side, but ended up screaming again as agony tore through her back and spiked through her leg. Tears burned her eyes and stung her cheeks as they ran down her face. God, she had a broken leg, and her wings were ruined.
She huffed out breaths as the pain subsided into throbbing aches that made her grit her teeth. A little more tentatively she moved one arm and blew out a breath of relief when it didn’t hurt. Her hand scraped across something lumpy and warm that rolled under her palm. Tina clenched a handful and brought it up to her face.
Gravel. She was holding gravel. Small creamy stones that seemed familiar.
She let her hand fall back to the ground and released the stones. Tentatively, she moved her other arm. Her hand slid across something warm and sticky, then bumped against something hard.
A roar made her heart clench and her breath freeze. Her hand clenched spasmodically around the hard thing, her claws scratching against it with a soft screech.
Another roar sent her gaze searching in the sky. Where was Sorvar? Why couldn’t she feel him inside her?
Tina rolled her head to the side, her gaze taking in the high stone walls around her. She knew this place. She was in the training courtyard, but why was she alive?
She rolled her head to the other side and her cheek pressed against warm smooth skin. Tina sucked in a breath, the scent of her mate filling her.
Sorvar! Oh, god. Had he caught her? Had he saved her? She needed to get up and check on him to see if he was all right.
The whistle of wings dragged Tina’s gaze into the sky in alarm to see a figure drop down and land with a thud that sent a tremor through the ground and pain spiking through her body. She gritted her teeth, her hand gripping the handle of what she now knew was Sorvar’s weapon as she watched a nightmare walk towards her.
Sickly green blood oozed from lacerations all over the body of the Crasgich. His white eye hung from its socket, thick viscous fluid leaking down the side of his face in a dark stain. Damaged wings spread out behind him, holes and slashes letting the sun shining behind him show through in blinding patches.
It started as a burn in Tina’s gut, a small kernel of anger that grew and grew as he walked towards her, his steps measured, cautious almost. The burn engulfed her until she didn’t know what hurt more—the pain of her battered body or the burning ball of rage in her stomach and chest. She tightened her fingers around the weapon in her hand, feeling the trigger with her finger. This shit was going to end now.
“You are far more resilient than I had heard humans are, female. You
will make a good breeder for the next generation of my sons,” the Crasgich growled when he was a few feet away.
“Fuck you,” Tina snarled and yanked the weapon out of its holster. She pointed it at the hideous male and squeezed the trigger, her sole goal to kill him.
“Fuck you and your stinky ugly ass,” she said as the first pulse shot hit him in the centre of his chest.
“And fuck your ugly stinky sons.” Another shot hit him, making him jerk and sending him staggering backward with a roar.
“And fuck those traitorous human bastards who were going to sell me to the Slicers.”
Tina kept firing and firing, her teeth gritted as rage pumped through her until the weapon clicked and the Crasgich bastard was on his knees.
He stared at her for long tense seconds as his body bucked and jerked, his breath rattling in his burned and smoking chest, before he toppled over backward.
A warm hand wrapped around her wrist and pressed her arm down.
I think he’s dead, pavri.
Tina’s hand started to shake and a sob ripped from her, sending a pain through her chest. She tried to roll and had to bite back a scream of pain as her leg shifted.
Sorvar groaned, a low deep sound that spoke of excruciating pain.
“Tina, don’t move, please,” he gasped.
“I need to check you, Sorvar. I need to make sure you aren’t bleeding to death or something,” she insisted, her voice wavering.
He huffed out a breath and she felt something heavy settle inside her.
“I do not believe I am dying, pavri. But I believe there will be some permanent damage.”
Tina’s chest clenched, her stomach tightening into a hard knot. “What kind of damage,” she whispered.
He slid his hand over hers and linked their fingers. “I cannot feel my legs, pavri. I believe my back is broken.”
All the tension drained out of Tina, and she sent a surge of warmth to Sorvar. “Well, it’s a good thing I’m a doctor then, isn’t it, handsome, or you’d be all out of luck. Fixing a broken back is a relatively simple operation. Once Bavric sets my leg and I can stand, we can fix you right up.”
His fingers spasmed around hers, squeezing painfully as a feeling she’d never felt from him rose sharply inside her.
“You can heal a broken back?” he asked and the disbelief was plain in his voice.
“Yes. I’ve done it before, but it requires surgery. I will have to cut you open and heal your spinal column directly, and it will take at least six weeks of recovery before you can attempt to walk.”
Sorvar didn’t say anything. He didn’t have to. The emotion that flooded Tina brought tears to her eyes, and it was all she could do not to sob.
I love you, pavri. You are the sun that wakes me in the morning and the stars that watch over me as I sleep at night. You are the river that washed away the child I was and turned me into a worthy male. I would gladly give up my legs or my wings to know you are by my side every day.
Tina couldn’t hold back her sob this time. And that was how Bavric and his crew of palace guards found them.
Broken, bleeding, and happier than two people with serious injuries had the right to be.
Epilogue
Two months, two weeks, and six days later.
Tina rushed down the corridor of the palace, hand in hand with Sorvar. Excitement bubbled inside them slipping through their bond until she was sure they were both giddy with it.
It was hatching day, and she was going to get to meet her babies, finally. The last two and a half months had seemed to drag so slowly. First she and Sorvar had to heal.
They had to put off the operation on his back until her leg was healed enough for her to bear her weight for the hours the surgery took. Her wings, much to her surprise, were healed in two days, something Tina was eternally grateful for, since she’d had to spend the two days lying almost motionless on a bed with her wings pinned in place.
Her leg took a little longer, but she used that time to grill Bavric on Morgath healing techniques, so she wasn’t as surprised when Sorvar was up and around four days after she operated on him, and he was walking normally in a week.
Sorvar’s father had relented on his orders that she stay in Sorvar’s suite, and he allowed her to study with Bavric. He still treated her like she was a second class citizen, but she had a feeling he was impressed she had been the one to kill the Crasgich, and it helped that all the other males treated her like she was some kind of hero.
Once the king relaxed his orders, she made sure she visited her eggs every day, stroking them and talking to them. Bavric teased her endlessly, telling her the babies couldn’t understand her yet, but Tina knew human babies far better than Bavric did. Humans had known for over a thousand years that babies in the womb could hear their parents talking to them, and it helped with the bonding process after birth.
But like now, every time she got close to Medical and passed that spot in the corridor, she remembered what Sorvar had done to his brother. She saw the stain of black blood on the white stone floor and remembered what it had looked like when she had panicked and left Medical.
Sorvar had done so much damage to his brother, it took the Crown Prince a month to recover. Even with the Morgath’s accelerated healing, Sinder was hanging on to his life by a thread when the guards carried him into Medical. Her mate had done what she asked and hadn’t killed his brother, but he’d certainly left a lasting impression on both Sinder and the king.
Sinder now completely avoided her, and Sorvar only saw his father during council sessions. Sinder had never apologised or made any attempt to patch things up with his brother. So it came as quite a surprise when they were politely asked by the king if he and Sinder could be present for the hatching of the babies.
Tina had suspicions that they just wanted to be there to see the deformed babies and say I told you so. At first she said no, but as hatching day drew nearer and Bavric’s scans showed healthy well developed human babies, she relented.
It came as no surprise when they rounded the corner and found the king and Sinder waiting outside the incubation room. She was surprised they hadn’t just gone in without them. Sorvar growled low in his throat as they neared. He had not been impressed when she had decided to let his father and brother be present for the hatching, but she had used her feminine wiles on him, and he had reluctantly agreed.
The heat of the incubation room hit her the minute they stepped through the second door. The noise hit her second. A low chirping. Their baby Morgath was calling to his daddy.
Sedric and Bavric were standing close to the eggs, but they remained silent. Any noise from them would confuse the little Morgath male, and he might bond to the wrong male.
Sorvar made the most peculiar sound Tina had ever heard him make, and she’d heard a lot. It was a strange cross between a purr and a cough, and their son responded with a happy little squeal.
They rushed over hand in hand to see that their little fighter had already slit his egg open and a tiny green snout was through the hole. Little nostrils flared, scenting the air, and Sorvar lifted his hand so their tiny son could scent his father. Another happy little sound emitted from the egg. To Tina’s surprise Sorvar grabbed her hand and lifted it for their son to scent.
Every male in the room gasped at what Sorvar had done, but their little boy sniffed at her hand and, to her astonishment, a soft little purr rumbled out of the egg. Sorvar chuckled and hugged her close, nuzzling her neck and placing a soft kiss on that spot she liked so much.
“I didn’t know you could purr,” she whispered.
“Only when we’re young,” he replied. “Well, it seems like he knows who his mama is.”
Tina turned her attention to the two remaining eggs. She’d had long discussions with Bavric about the hatching of her and Sorvar’s human babies. They knew there was a distinct possibility that they wouldn’t be able to break out of their shells.
A strange sound emitted from the tiny Morgath
male. It was a chirp, but not the low chirp he’d used to call to Sorvar. This was a high pitched chirp in a series, then a pause, before he repeated the sound.
“He’s been doing that for the last three hours,” Bavric said. “I’ve never heard it before. There are no records of a hatchling making that sound.”
If Tina hadn’t been looking at the eggs of her human babies, she would have missed it. But she was, and saw the movement of the surface of the eggs, the bulge that moved before settling.
“He’s calling to his siblings,” she murmured.
A low growl came from behind her, and she just knew it was Sinder. The growled That’s ridiculous just confirmed it.
Tina ignored Sinder and looked at Bavric. “Are we going to do this?”
He looked down at the eggs and back at her before picking up the thin bladed knife on the bench behind the eggs. Turning it handle first, he passed it to her.
“Your babies, so you do the honours.”
She bared her teeth at him in a fierce grimace. The wuss. He knew how Sorvar was going to react, and he didn’t want to be the one with the knife in his hand.
Predictably, she felt Sorvar’s horror a second before he grabbed her hand and said, “Tina, what are you doing?”
She turned to look at him and stroked the smooth skin of his cheek. “I’m saving our babies, Sorvar. They don’t have an egg tooth. If I don’t cut the eggs, they will die.”
His yellow gaze burned into hers. She could almost feel the war that raged inside him. Their little son called to his siblings again and Tina felt a wave of sadness that they couldn’t call back, at least not yet.
“Don’t hurt them, pavri.”
She gave him a tight nod and turned to the first egg. Tina pressed the sharp tip of the knife against the egg and popped a small hole in it before slicing a long curving cut through the leathery shell.
Folding the flap of egg back, she felt tears sting her eyes. Oh, little one, so beautiful. Creamy skin was covered in a thick coating of clear goo. Peachy coloured scales wrapped around the baby’s waist and down over the top of its thigh.
Claimed (Project Destiny Book 1) Page 19
